The Lollipop Guild lives: my encounter with the Munchkins

I am not a Wizard of Oz cultist, but I have indeed memorized the picture — as did most people have who grew up watching it annually (and then semi-annually) on TV. In my “other life” as a freelance writer/reviewer, I was able to recently bask in the glow of this evergreen fantasy when I was sent to cover an Oz press junket and then a lush party at the Tavern on the Green, which began with a hot-air balloon being inflated on the lawn (to promote the DVD/Blu-ray release of the newly restored version of the film) and ended with a series of performances inside the restaurant.

As I note in the piece linked to below — which is written in a rather straightforward reportorial style, as VB is indeed a trade mag — there was a slightly surreal cast to the Oz events, as the folks who were celebrating the film were celebrating it for a whole host of reasons: because they participated in it; because their famed relatives participated in it; because they grew up with it, and know the thing by heart; because they grew up with it, and secretly began living it; or because they were/are starstruck by Judy Garland, the tragic star who wasn’t tragic at all when she made the classic 1939 film (but that song, that sad, sad, freakin’ song…!).

In any case, there were several highlights to the day, but one personal highlight meant much to me: shaking the hands of three of the male Munchkins who were in attendance. Only six of the little people who acted in the film are still alive (out of a number above 120) and five of them appeared in the event. I got some time to chat with Jerry Maren and his lovely and friendly wife — Maren has had an amazingly long career in show biz (the surviving Munchkins range in age from 86 to 94), and his credit list includes both At the Circus with the Marx Bros. (yes, he’s the butt of Groucho’s “three on a midget” gag) and The Gong Show (he was the confetti guy at the end). Maren is quite friendly and has honed his anecdotes (all he will say about the Gong experience is that working with Chuck Barris was fun, “he wouldn’t hurt a fly — but he’s crazy!”). All in all, it was quite a colorful day, and I must salute the little people who populated the film that spawned many a daydream and nightmare. Here is my “button-down” account of the day for the VB blog, and here is a terrific pic of the five Munchkins who attended:

"God's Lonely Man" now on YouTube

What a strange world this is. Taxi Driver, a film that defines an era in NYC (as viewed through the lens of some absolutely brilliant but inwardly tortured filmmakers), is now readily available for viewing on Youtube, thanks to corporate sponsorship. The fact that the film is as vital and disturbing today as it was 33 years ago is indisputable, but what is also apparent is that it belongs to the special moment in American film (the “maverick” instant) where major studio films could be deeply disturbing and challenging, without resorting to the “indie” label that currently produces a necessary shield of critical affirmation and at least one major “name” who gets the project ink and attention.

If made today, the film would be considered “reckless” and “dangerous,” and without question racist and sexist. Hollywood in the Seventies was a stranger place, though, and the film was indeed made with mainstream dough for mainstream audiences. The fact that the chieftains and talents at the time indulged in "substances" also impacted the film in a brilliant fashion (cocaine then was what CGI is today, an insidious tool that could alternately overwhelm or in fact aid fine filmmaking, especially when the subject was any kind of paranoia). It is indeed a modern American masterpiece that I oddly look at these days as strangely “innocent” (although a guiltier movie never existed, on the level of existential guilt), perhaps because I was a child in the dirty, crime-ridden NYC that the film depicts and I long for that raucous time, in comparison to the current benign tourist paradise that the city has become (greetings from Bloomberg Beach). The film’s antihero is timeless, its situations are timeless, but its real-life location has vastly changed, and not wholly for the better.

In the meantime you can now watch the entire movie on YouTube, preceded and sporadically interrupted by car commercials (and ads for the Army — hey kids, become *just like* Travis…!). You have to sign in with your YT i.d. and password when the watch the movie since it is rated R, but you are also warned that “information about you maybe be collected when you view this page.” You wanna talk disturbing?